Friday, November 27, 2009

Book Review: "Duplikate" by Cherry Cheva

To Do List:

Ace SATs

Ace finals

Ace AP physics project

Avoid murdering lab partner

Submit Yale application

Resolve possibly evil twin situation

Due date: December 15th

Countdown: 11 days

By the time Kate Larson accidentally fell asleep at three a.m., she'd already done more work in one night than the average high school senior does in a week. Getting into Yale has been her dream for years—and being generally overworked and totally under-rested is the price of admission. But when she opens her eyes the next day, she comes face-to-face with, well, her face—which is attached to her body, which is standing across the room. Wait, what?

Meet Kate's computer-generated twin. Kate doesn't know why she's here or how to put her back where she belongs, but she's real. And she's the last thing Kate has time to deal with right now. Unless . . .

Could having a double be the answer to Kate's prayers? After all, two Kates can do more work than one. Or will keeping her twin a secret turn her dream future into a living nightmare?

Reading this book made me realize several things. One, high school students have far too much pressure on them to get things done in order to get into a good college. This book brought back memories of my high school days when I was frantically trying to accomplish many tasks simultaneously to make my college portfolio stand out. Like Kate, I had to study for SATs, write college essays, do outstanding in my college classes, and only choose extracurricular activities that would make my application look worthy enough for the school I was applying too. Without having a clone, it's almost impossible to get everything done without stressing yourself or having a nervous breakdown. It's something that can be expected from adults in the workplace or even college students, but for teens to have to go through this, I think it's expecting too much. Yes, there is a time to learn how to handle responsibility and know how the real world is, but teens are too young to give up enjoying life to be stressed out physically and emotionally like this.

The second was, I need to go back to my Sims game and make sure my game self has plenty of stuff in their room to keep them happy! Rina has been living in a room with barely anything for the past 4 years because Kate got tired with the computer game and didn't think to stock her house! I found this hilarious because there have been many times I've played the Sims and depending on my mood, I've either maxed out my Sim's house to give them the comfiest pad possible or I've been bored and had them living in a bare bones house. I could not imagine with it would be like if one of them came to life like Rina did in this story. The little thing about how Rina devoured every book, just like a Sim were hilarious.

The storyline was extremely well done as we see Kate having to balance her life between her studies, her relationships and then now with Rina. I loved how Rina just got shoved back into the closet at the end of the day or when she had to hide. Something else that was also a really nice touch was having an Asian American character NOT be the stereotypical perfect student who always gets good grades. The only thing I would have changed would be more interaction with Rina and Kate. As it stands, I felt it was a little abrupt at the ending, and thought it would have been more interesting to see how the two would have interacted after everything they had been through died down. It seemed at first that there would be a possibility that Rina was trying to take over Kate's life and then send back Kate to the computer world but that storyline never really took shape.

Other than this, I really enjoyed this story. Even though there's the fantasy aspect to it, I think it's something a lot of teens will relate to, both the scholars and the gamers. I found the book hilariously funny and that's also due to the fact that the author is a writer for Family Guy, one of my favorite shows. I'll be looking to reading more books from her and in the meantime, off to make sure my Sims are happy!